Forward and aft engine mounts are currently used to mount an engine to an aircraft support structure, such as a wing or tail pylon. These mounts work well at carrying in-plane loads, i.e., those occurring generally in a plane extending perpendicularly outwardly from the longitudinal axis of the engine, including vertical and lateral loads and rotary torque or moments. A thrust mount is used to transfer axially-directed thrust loads of the engine to the support structure. Tension loads occur during forward thrust of the engine, and compression loads occur during braking and during use of the engine's thrust reversers. Thrust loads are commonly transferred from the engine through two thrust links connected to a portion of an aft engine mount. The thrust load is then transferred to the wing pylon through shear pins in the aft engine mount. This route from the engine to the wing is generally referred to as the total thrust load path.
It is important that thrust mounts be designed in such a way as to minimize the risk of an engine loss should the thrust mount fail. It is also important that the mount be relatively easy to manufacture, install, and maintain. At times, these aspects produce incompatible design goals that are difficult to effectively reconcile.
For example, one current thrust mount described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,307, uses a primary pin and two catcher pins to hold an evener beam in a thrust mount clevis. Both catcher pins are designed to engage if the primary pin fails or if a thrust link fails. The '307 design requires a wide thrust clevis in order to accept three pins in a row. Such a clevis is costly to machine since an end mill must reach a long distance into a hard material, e.g., titanium, in order to machine the open areas required to form the thrust clevis. This configuration also has the disadvantage of being inherently heavier because the required in-line bores limit the amount of weight-reducing pocketing that may be accomplished in the evener beam. The second catcher pin and the wideness of the overall clevis also add weight to this particular design.
There exists a need for a superior thrust mount capable of handling thrust loads, while at the same time having a reasonable size and weight. The mount should provide adequate load bearing capability in the event of a thrust link or pin failure and should be easy to install. The mount should also be easy to maintain and require less custom manufacturing than current designs. As will be appreciated by the following description, the present invention provides such a superior thrust mount.